


Paralyzed

by DragonJadeMountain



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series), Thomas Sanders
Genre: Angst, Angst with no happy ending, Anxiety, Bad Thoughts, Blood, Depression, How Do I Tag, Hurt, Hurt Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, Hurt Morality | Patton Sanders, Hurt No Comfort, I wrote this while running on four hours of sleep and really bad anxiety, Injury, Logan Needs A Hug, Mind the Tags, Self Harm, Social Anxiety, Spiraling, Suicidal Thoughts, This is not gonna be a fun ride kiddos, disassociating, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 03:18:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17035602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonJadeMountain/pseuds/DragonJadeMountain
Summary: People don't always have good days, and sometimes that bad days are really really bad. Sometimes there are too many feelings, and sometimes there aren't any at all. And those days are always the worst.Mind the tags guys! There's some triggering stuff in here, I'll try and post warnings at the beginnings of chapters too, but be safe guys, this is not a very fun fic





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings:  
> -Disassociating  
> -Self Harm  
> -Blood
> 
> Let me know if I need to add anything

_Where are my feelings?_

_I no longer feel things_

_I know I should_

 

Logan was smart. He could trace thousands of constellations in the sky and tell you which stars they contained and how bright they were and how far away from earth they were and how they got their names. He could remember hundreds of math equations from memory and recite them back to you at an instant. He could think his way around logic puzzles that confounded men twice his age. He could do it all.

So why did he feel so lost?

Logan hated feeling, he hated it with everything he had. Emotions weren’t logical, they weren’t appropriate. They got in the way more often than not, and they hardly made sense. Logan couldn’t help but be repulsed. So he repressed them. Deep down, he knew they were still there. He couldn’t help that bubble of joy when Patton finally understood what he was saying, or the wave of pride when he finished a late night project that had consumed him for weeks, or that downpour of sadness when he could hear faint crying from Patton or Virgil’s rooms. He had emotions, he knew that, but he pushed them down so far and pretended he couldn’t feel them.

Which almost made these days worse. The days when he couldn’t feel anything. Reaching down into his chest to draw up some last dredge of happiness, sadness, fear. Anything. Anything to feel, but on days like these he found himself empty. He sighed once again, letting his cold breath escape his lips into the stale air around him. Hunched over at his desk, in a posture he knew wasn’t any good for him, he tapped his fingers erratically on the wood, the movement doing very little to ease the tension in his joints.

Logan straightened himself up, hearing the vertebrae in his back crack as he moved. Sparing a glance at the analog clock that read _2:37,_ he sighed once again. With stiff movements, he stood and began to pace around his room. The simple, logical, calm movements eased him, but the emptiness in his gut tore at his attention. He remembered Virgil once describing his anxiety as like a beast that was coiled in his stomach that demanded attention. Logan felt almost the opposite. The absence of the beast was almost more worrying than its presence.

Logan’s footsteps were calm and collected as he moved, hands placed simply behind his back. He almost yearned for the hot feelings impatience, rather than the cold numbness that was beginning to echo out from his stomach and envelop his limbs as well. He stopped cold in his tracks, ceasing his pacing. The tips of his fingers and toes tingled as he brought his hands up into his line of sight. He waved his pinkies around, but although he registered that he was moving his hands and the hands beneath him were moving, he could not seem to bring himself to realize that the two were one and the same.

Logan felt something tighten in his chest and he could have nearly cried in relief at the feeling of something. Touching one trembling hand up to his cheek, he realized that he had actually begun to cry. He faintly wondered how long he had been doing that for. With a small sense of purpose, he marched over to the bathroom that adjoined his room and wordlessly flicked the lights on. In the harsh fluorescent light, his skin looked pale. It shone so much with sweat and tears that it almost glimmered like metal. He touched his hand to his cheek again and felt the cold skin twitch at the touch. If it hadn’t been for his erratic hair and the redness of his eyes, he might have mistaken the man looking back at him from the mirror to be a robot.

Casting his gaze downwards, Logan’s eyes caught on a small glass jar. He picked it up gently. He couldn’t distinctly remember where he had gotten it from, but he knew none of the others had given it to him. It fit into the palm of his hand.

In a moment of uncharacteristic impulsivity, he raised his left hand and smashed the small glass container into the sink. The sound of shattering glass reached his ears as if it were somewhere off in the distance. Reaching down, Logan grabbed a handful of the shards. He felt their jagged tips pierce the palm of his hand, sending waves of pain up his arm. He clenched his hand tighter into a fist, faintly registering the blood that was now dripping from his hand into the sink. He smiled a bit faintly, the gesture painfully fake, even to him.

Still, he was grateful he supposed as another shock of hurt crashed up his arm and pierced into his shoulder. He could still feel. He wasn’t totally numb after all. The pain was proof of that. The pain was good. The pain meant he was still here. Still living. Still _alive._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Logan is probably the second easiest to write angst for, after Virgil. God only knows how many days I've woken up and felt totally numb, like I can't feel anything. It's the worst feeling in the world, even if I don't particularly like feelings on the best of days


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings:  
> -Self-Esteem Issues
> 
> Let me know if I need to add anything

 

_Where is the real me?_

_I’m lost and it kills me inside._

 

Roman groaned a bit, crumpling up the piece of paper he had been fervently writing on for the past hour and a half. No good, no good at all. With a half-hearted flick of his wrist, he tossed the failed idea behind him to join the ever-growing pile of rejected ideas. He tapped his pencil against the table he was working on, faintly acknowledging that the notebook he had been using was getting dangerously thin. He’d have to get a new one soon.

With a heavy sigh, he stood and stretched, feeling his muscles groan with the sudden movement. He couldn’t blame them, he had absolutely no idea how long he’d been sitting there for. Looking around at the piles of white and grey that decorated his now even messier room, he couldn’t help but feel disheartened. So much time spent, so many ideas, and yet not a single good one. And after all, if he wasn’t smart enough to think of a single clever and interesting idea, what use was he really?

Ducking into his bathroom, he gently shut the door behind him, locking himself away in an even smaller space. He looked up at the mirror and immediately grimaced. He had nearly forgotten what his real face looked like, he hadn’t seen it so long. He touched an almost disbelieving hand to the bags under his eyes and swallowed hard, watching his adam’s apple bob up and down with the movement.

With a frown and another sigh, Roman reached over and grabbed his makeup bag that was lying open and waiting on the counter. He dug through it pulling out bottles and tubes and jars and all sorts of things that most people wouldn’t even recognized. He started with concealer. That was the easiest, but also the most important. He decorated his ugly greasy skin with a soft hue of light tan that leveled out the bumps in his face and smoothed out the redness with an even shade. Next it was time for contouring. Brushing along his cheekbones and jawline. Hepainted another’s face onto his own. Hiding behind it like a mask, he wouldn’t dare let them see what he really looked like. They would drop him in a heartbeat.

He hesitated a moment before grabbing the eyeshadow. He may as well look his dazzling best. Dark reds and brilliant golds danced over his eyelids like constellations of royal hues. He hummed a bit in contentment as he examined his handiwork with a critical eye. There could be no mistakes, no cracks in the masks, nothing to betray him to reality.

Finding the makeup work satisfactory, he bared his teeth in a grimace, examining them too. They were white, neat, and perfect to the outsider’s eye. But to Roman, they were caked with gunk and crooked and disgusting. He closed his lips together, grabbing for his toothbrush. He scrubbed at them vigorously. He had to get it all off, they had to be pristine. Nothing but the best to show the world. When he was done, he examined them again. Better, but not perfect. He resigned himself to only tight-lipped smiles today, he wouldn’t show anything less than perfect.

Tipping his eyes up, he groaned at the sight of his hair. A disaster if he had ever seen it. He grabbed for his brush and some gel. Brushing first, he fought against the tangled knots and then stuck the strands together tightly in smooth neat lines with the gel. Every step took a painstakingly long time, but in the end it was worth it, Roman was certain of that much at least.

Finally, Roman stood back and looked at himself in the mirror. He barely recognized the figure staring back at him. His eyes, his face, his teeth, his clothes. They all belonged to him but they weren’t him. They belonged to Roman the hero. Roman the prince. Roman the bold and brave and bordering on stupidity. The man in the mirror was a much better man than Roman the idiot. Romand the uncreative. Roman the ugly. Roman liked the man in the mirror much better.

With a sigh he opened the door and flicked off the light. He grimaced as he stepped back into his disaster of his room. He would clean it later, he promised, after he had breakfast. The dark part of him whispered he didn’t deserve breakfast, but he squashed those thoughts in their tracks. He couldn’t let his friends down. Not again. With a bold smile, he stepped out into the world, leaving the disgusting Roman in his room, locked away where the world wouldn’t see him. The world didn’t need to see that. No one did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I have no idea how makeup works, I'm just making it up as I go  
> Also, no shade on people who wear makeup! Roman uses it unhealthily to cover up the "flaws" and as a coping mechanism for his self-hatred. If you like wearing makeup and it makes you feel confident, all the more power to you! You do you, but no one should have to feel pressured to wear it because they hate the way they look without it  
> Just thought I'd add that little side note, just in case


End file.
